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Not about HIM, you won't

Last Monday, a high school student in North Carolina engaged his
social studies teacher in a heated debate about politics and the two
leading presidential candidates. During the exchange, the teacher (an
obvious Obama supporter) got very angry with the student and accused him
of disrespecting the president. She even went so far as to tell the boy
that he could be jailed for speaking ill of Obama.

Sarah Campbell of the Salisbury Post
first reported on the story. She claims that the school district is not
releasing the name of the teacher and that she is not responding to
requests for public comment (although the two students identified her to
the newspaper). According to Campbell’s story, the teacher will not be
suspended or even face disciplinary action for what was heard on the
recording. A statement from the school was released at the end of the
week:

“The Rowan-Salisbury School System expects all students
and employees to be respectful in the school environment and for all
teachers to maintain their professionalism in the classroom. This
incident should serve as an education for all teachers to stop and
reflect on their interaction with students. Due to personnel and student
confidentiality, we cannot discuss the matter publicly.”

So, how bad was the exchange? It got fairly heated, with the teacher
shouting at times. The kerfuffle started after one student asked a
question about the teacher’s “fact of the day” that said Romney was a
bully back in high school. A student asked:

“Didn’t Obama bully somebody, though?”

The teacher started to get angry and said:

“Not to my knowledge.”

A couple of students relayed the story about Obama admitting that he
bullied someone when he was younger. And that seemed to light the fuse
on his teacher’s anger. A couple of the students exchanged words with
the angry teacher.

“Stop! Stop! Because there’s no comparison. He’s running for president. Obama is the president.”

As one student attempted to argue for a fair, two-sided debate on the
history of the candidates, he was shouted down and talked over by the
teacher. She continued:

“You got to realize, this man is wanting to be what Obama is. There’s no comparison.”

Once again, the students pressed for equal discussion of the histories of both men, with one saying:

“If you’re gonna talk trash about one side, you gotta talk trash about the other.”

The teacher just seemed to dig her heels in deeper and press her defense of Obama telling the defiant teen:

“You will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.”

Again the student persisted and invoked his First Amendment right.

“I’ll say what I want.”

The still unidentified teacher read the student her rules…her Obama rules.

“Not about him, you won’t!”

The back and forth continued and the most strident of the two
students reminded his teacher that President Bush was constantly treated
to negative statements about him while he was in office:

“Whenever Bush was president, everybody talked sh-t about him.”

To which the teacher responded:

“Because he was sh-tty.”

The social studies educator went on for a full minute with more
ranting, saying that people were arrested for saying derogatory things
about President Bush. The student correctly reminded the teacher that
opinions are protected, but you cannot be arrested unless you threaten
the president.

Our research has not turned up a single case of anyone in America
being arrested for speaking ill of former President Bush. The local
newspaper story also mentioned that their discussions about the story
with a political science professor could not recall the arrests that the
teacher was speaking about.

Update:

We learned the name and the fate of the Social Studies teacher heard
on the video posted below. Toyna Dixon-Neely is the woman heard yelling
at students who dared to express negative opinions about President
Obama. We also found out that Ms. Dixon-Neely’s outrageous statements
may not have led to a strict punishment: the local newspaper is reporting that she has been suspended with pay. (Curiously the Huffington Post says that the teacher is on an unpaid suspension, pending the outcome of the investigation by the school board.)

The entire confrontation was recorded by a student and posted on YouTube. Listen below; slight content warning for language.

This was poor teaching. She/He should definately be investigated and if nothing else tenure should be yanked. There was a very good learning experience here that was simply not taken. I am not surprised though, the system needs a lot of fixing.

Remain ignorant, doesn't hurt me any. There are enough Texans that will do the right thing, so that you will remain irrelevant.

You have any examples of erroneous ideas that Texas is teaching on history.

I read quite a lot about how the new school board had corrected a lot of misinformation in the new books,( I suspect that is what you are talking about) which is great because of the size of the school system there, it bleeds over to textbooks for other states.

I am many things, but never irrelevant.

I do have some examples, though that is not exactly what I was getting at. One quick example though is TX's removal of Thomas Jefferson from the section on great political thinkers. That I think is pretty funny, or sad, depending on how you look at it. Oh, and sex ed here was interesting. My son came home and told me about what they said, and what he said, and that luckily no one was sent to the office.

No though, believe it or not, all states teach history and politics to a certain bias. We have lived all over being military, and my children learned in Hawaii how we stole their islands (their version of history, which has some truth to it). There is also a large Asian, particularly Japanese influence in Hawaii and in elementary school they had a traditional Japanese celebration for 5th grade graduation that was really cool. They learned about Pacific history while living in Guam. Going to Ohio was interesting because suddenly social studies and history were teaching not about Pacific Islanders, but Native Americans, and if Hawaii was mentioned, how we did NOT steal the islands. LOL! No more talk about the meaning of hula dancing, ukes, and Queen Liliuokalani. No Chamorro language, but Spanish was fairly common.

Now in TX everything revolves around, guess what, TX. According to my son, if it it did not happen in TX, it did not happen. Very short shift has been given so far to non-TX history, but I am sure that will be corrected in high school, or so I hope.

All schools are biased, and my children have been lucky enough to be exposed to different cultures in different schools. It gives them a different perspective though sometimes on what is taught, and that sometimes leads to friction between them, and the dominant school thought at the time. Also, all my kids read a lot, and they learn things in books that is not always taught in school, and again, leads to friction.

Oh, and I am not irrelevant because I am the mother of these wonderful children.

Remain ignorant, doesn't hurt me any. There are enough Texans that will do the right thing, so that you will remain irrelevant.

You have any examples of erroneous ideas that Texas is teaching on history.

I read quite a lot about how the new school board had corrected a lot of misinformation in the new books,( I suspect that is what you are talking about) which is great because of the size of the school system there, it bleeds over to textbooks for other states.

I am many things, but never irrelevant.

I do have some examples, though that is not exactly what I was getting at. One quick example though is TX's removal of Thomas Jefferson from the section on great political thinkers. That I think is pretty funny, or sad, depending on how you look at it. Oh, and sex ed here was interesting. My son came home and told me about what they said, and what he said, and that luckily no one was sent to the office.

No though, believe it or not, all states teach history and politics to a certain bias. We have lived all over being military, and my children learned in Hawaii how we stole their islands (their version of history, which has some truth to it). There is also a large Asian, particularly Japanese influence in Hawaii and in elementary school they had a traditional Japanese celebration for 5th grade graduation that was really cool. They learned about Pacific history while living in Guam. Going to Ohio was interesting because suddenly social studies and history were teaching not about Pacific Islanders, but Native Americans, and if Hawaii was mentioned, how we did NOT steal the islands. LOL! No more talk about the meaning of hula dancing, ukes, and Queen Liliuokalani. No Chamorro language, but Spanish was fairly common.

Now in TX everything revolves around, guess what, TX. According to my son, if it it did not happen in TX, it did not happen. Very short shift has been given so far to non-TX history, but I am sure that will be corrected in high school, or so I hope.

All schools are biased, and my children have been lucky enough to be exposed to different cultures in different schools. It gives them a different perspective though sometimes on what is taught, and that sometimes leads to friction between them, and the dominant school thought at the time. Also, all my kids read a lot, and they learn things in books that is not always taught in school, and again, leads to friction.

Oh, and I am not irrelevant because I am the mother of these wonderful children.

A little different POV... Listen to this teacher. I mean listen to her slaughter the English language. Listen to what she says and how she says it. This woman doesn't even have a middle school grasp of the English lexicon. And she is TEACHING high school?

I think she needs to go back to school herself and learn the English language first then maybe learn high school social studies before she is allowed to teach anyone.

A little different POV... Listen to this teacher. I mean listen to her slaughter the English language. Listen to what she says and how she says it. This woman doesn't even have a middle school grasp of the English lexicon. And she is TEACHING high school?

I think she needs to go back to school herself and learn the English language first then maybe learn high school social studies before she is allowed to teach anyone.

You weren't really supposed to menton that.

We are a quota society now, it wouldn't be fair not to let her be a teacher simply because she, well can't teach.

The blaze slant In the real news article the teacher mentions that people who question the president ((including precious bushie) go to jail> With sites like that I can see why people think teachers are morons. Its assbackwards thinking

I'm sure I am the only one laughing at this. I can sooo imagine my son being the arguing student. I really expected this to sound worse than what it did. I know back when I was an ed major, not what I finally got my degree in, that they had no classes on class-room management. Obviously the teacher does not understand how to facilitate a genuine conversation. She is making a lot of mistakes, and not just in the English language. The teacher was at least keeping her students interested during this moment!

While I agree with you, "Can't teach"??? This woman can barely speak/communicate. She seems incapable of stringing words together into an intelligible, coherent sentence. I'm not sure she could adequately pose the question "would you like fries with that?" or "Paper or plastic?" in a comprehensible manner.

Okay, maybe she could pull off "Paper or plastic?" seing that this is not a complete sentence.

Quoting asfriend:

Quoting ExecutiveChick:

A little different POV... Listen to this teacher. I mean listen to her slaughter the English language. Listen to what she says and how she says it. This woman doesn't even have a middle school grasp of the English lexicon. And she is TEACHING high school?

I think she needs to go back to school herself and learn the English language first then maybe learn high school social studies before she is allowed to teach anyone.

You weren't really supposed to menton that.

We are a quota society now, it wouldn't be fair not to let her be a teacher simply because she, well can't teach.

The blaze slantIn the real news article the teacher mentions that people who question the president ((including precious bushie) go to jail> With sites like that I can see why people think teachers are morons. Its assbackwards thinking

I'm sure I am the only one laughing at this. I can sooo imagine my son being the arguing student. I really expected this to sound worse than what it did. I know back when I was an ed major, not what I finally got my degree in, that they had no classes on class-room management. Obviously the teacher does not understand how to facilitate a genuine conversation. She is making a lot of mistakes, and not just in the English language. The teacher was at least keeping her students interested during this moment!

If keeping them interested is the goal, I can aim gunfire at their feet, I can assure you that i can hold their attention, and do less damage to - history, civics and the english langauge than she did.

Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
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